


down to my skin and bones

by hellopurpletiger (Felix_Kawaii)



Series: hellopurpletiger & Mercia's June Prompt Challenge [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Narcissa finds this all amusing, References to Depression, Sickfic, Summer, Vacation, and draco is a romantic, for all you precious people suffering when the sun comes out, harry sometimes needs a swear jar, hayfever - Freeform, no matter what he tells people, only sometimes, puppy, which rarely occurs when you live in the UK
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-18 14:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14854802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felix_Kawaii/pseuds/hellopurpletiger
Summary: prompt fills





	1. Hayfever

**Author's Note:**

> For my and @Mercia's June writing challenge. 1 prompt every day. Whoooooo boi

It was the first day off Draco had had in a while - the perfect Saturday. The British Summer had been slow to take, but now that it was here, it was glorious. The skies were bluer than he'd seen in months, an endless bolt of cobalt fabric, embroidered with wispy white threads of  summer cloud. The river which meandered past their house glittered and glinted silver as it stretched around the bend, and moved on past, taking with it small groups of families, and teens, and adorable elderly couples making their way down the riverside path.

Draco glared at the closed curtains, daring any one of those lucky bastards to look up. Or he would have, if his eyes didn't feel so sore. All he could see was the blurry bright shape of their drapes in the dim light of their room - but he could certainly hear their laughter!

"Have you taken your potion yet?"

He scowled and sniffed pointedly - and then spluttered when no air came through his nose. He made a few grabby motions with his hands until it was met with a wad of tissues, slamming them to his running nose.

"Ob-course!" He didn't blow his nose quite as daintily as he would have liked, but at this point he was well past caring. "Ib no' working."

"Did you take the right dose?" Harry was trying. His boyfriend had picked up the discarded phial on the bedside table and was reading the label with a squint. "One tablespoon, once a day - "

Draco rolled his eyes, flopping bodily back onto their bed. He was hot, sweaty and sick, and it felt absolutely disgusting. Of course, he'd read the dose - who exactly was the qualified Healer here? Exactly.

St Mungo's in London had expanded to a new location in Scotland and between establishing himself at the new hospital and checking up on the long-term patients he'd had to pass on to other Healers, he hadn't had a proper day off in months. He felt like he'd hardly seen Harry in months. Gone were the days when they could take spontaneous weekend trips or spend a whole afternoon doing nothing. His hours at the new hospital were long and by the time he got home, he barely had enough energy to eat leftover, maybe press a kiss to his lover's head and climb into bed.

"I hate thib." Even his voice sounded disgusting, he would wrinkle his nose if he could.

Hayfever - the bane of his summer joy. The nemesis of his every vacation.

His eyes felt teary and raw. There had been a plan, he whined internally, a fantastic day at the beach, a chance to test out the new Never-burn Potion and maybe tan for once, a nice barbeque and maybe a few drinks. He missed Harry for Merlin's sake!

Warm hands curled around his own and Draco let himself be hauled up into more of a sitting position, not bothering to open his eyes or do much more than flop against Harry's chest. Something cool and wet was draped across the back of his neck and he hummed happily in response.

"I hab blans." He whispered, fingers scrunching in the linen of Harry's shirt.

"I know," He didn't have to look to know Harry's eyes had gone all soft, "S'okay, we can do those another time." The mattress dipped slightly as Harry took an excessively careful seat on the bed, carding a few fingers gently through Draco's hair. His boyfriend had come up a few times already today to check on him, only to have Draco ignore him and burrow deeper into his sheets miserably.

He'd never had hayfever before the war, strangely enough, but since then it had happened a few times, although never to the extent that Harry was seeing now. He knew his boyfriend was worried. It was the first time he'd probably seen him so ill since they'd starting dating almost three years ago. Being a Healer meant his immune system was pretty strong against most things - but apparently not pollen.

Draco let Harry fuss a bit with the cool flannel on his neck, if it would put him at ease, before leaning away weakly. It was far too warm and stuffy in this room to be against each other for so long, but even as he pushed away he felt exhausted.

"I can get the bath going, see if that helps? Fill it with cool water?"

The thought of something nice and cold made him sigh happily, the flannel already getting warmer against his skin. "Ice cream, too?"

Harry let out a soft, but bright laugh. "You're really different when you're sick, aren't you?" He tugged Draco upright, helping him to his feet with strong arms. "Yeah, I'll get you some, Highness."


	2. Pets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Day 2 of Pride Prompts 2018 (even though its late af)
> 
> " A - "
> 
> "A puppy, I know."

Harry loves Draco for it - no matter how often he gets ribbed for it. The way his boyfriend can’t resist just checking passing windows on the street for a glimpse of his own reflection, a hand twitching upwards wanting to adjust a strand of soft hair but restraining so that the movement becomes much more aware of itself and subtle. He still stops to fix it, though.

“I’m vain,” Draco always says, his nose in the air just so. “Everyone is, I’m just not afraid to admit it.”

Harry thinks that true of a lot of people - that vanity is a side effect of pride and perfectionism. Pride, something people always get told to watch or be un afraid of. Too much pride, too little pride - both are undesirable. Perfectionism too - something that makes you a hard worker, determined, but fussy about getting things right. Pride in what you do.

And Harry admires that about Draco. That his boyfriend can stride down the street without having to drop his hand, head held high and grip warm against his own. That Draco, used to the sneers and the sheer snideness that accompanies politicking and the public eye, gives him a reassuring smile, a warm hand on his back, far better than his own half-grimace, for every journalist or photographer who interrupts their dates.

But there are bad days. Days when he comes home from the Corps’ Training Centre to drawn drapes and dark rooms, a curled shape beneath the sheets of their bed. On those days, Draco doesn’t move - like the barest change in his whispered breaths will disturb the world beyond the window.

Or the world will disturb him.

Harry doesn’t understand as much as he’d like. He’s never been much of the thinker. He’s not like Draco, who lies silent and still. When he’s upset, Harry throws cheap objects - cushions, ugly plates, the like - and blasts them out of the sky above the backyard with his wand. He moves.

It’s not healthy for either of them, he knows, but he’s not sure what else he can do beyond curl in beside him and warm Draco’s cold feet with his own.

Ron is actually the one he has to thank - which should be surprising though it really isn’t. “Found her on a patrol in Knockturn,” He says, dropping to his knees just inside the door.

The wooden crate in his hands looks like it’s been nicked from the back of the Leaky Cauldron, the wood slightly damp but looks to be far too light to hold the number of butterbeer bottles it should.

“Not really in the mood for a drink.” He says, trying not to angle his body back to the closed door of their bedroom.

“I’m not an idiot,” Ron huffs dryly, somewhere between a laugh and something tinged a little bitter as he leans back from the opening of the box. Inside the ball of fur is barely recognizable, no bigger than his forearm and shivering so hard the Auror Corps’ issued towels shake with it.

“A - ”

“A puppy, I know.” Ron interrupts, hands lifting to stall any questions. “I would take her back to ours, but you know what Mum’s like, and that fussy old cat of ‘Mione’s.” The puppy is hopelessly soft looking, with treacle-dark ears and wide eyes that watch him warily from its crate.

“I …”  He says, listening to the telling sounds of the bed springs and quiet steps on floorboards. Harry flicks his eyes away from the puppy, gorgeous as she is, and to the closed bedroom door… “I guess.”

“Thanks, mate.” Ron says, turning to leave after a clap on his back, “I’ll go in with you tomorrow to figure the rest of it out.”

It’s not until the door is shut and the flat is dark and quiet again that the bedroom door opens. Draco wanders out in an old t-shirt, crinkles in its faded fabric as deep as the purple-grey bags under his eyes.

“Ron.” Harry says, by way of explanation, walking across the room to slip his fingers between Draco’s. He follows, slowly and lethargically, like walking exhausts him, breathing exhausts him, as Harry tugs him back towards the entryway.

He doesn’t let go, fingers closed over Draco’s dull pulse, not until his boyfriend stops in his tracks behind him. Draco makes a small sound, soft and wounded, slate grey eyes fixing on the tiny head peeking out from the box. “Oh.” He says, in a gentle whuff of air. He pulls his hands away from Harry’s and lowers oh-so-gingerly to the floor, eyes bright and warm again.

And Harry -

Harry doesn’t really know the first thing about looking after dogs - real dogs, not Animagus ones. Doesn’t know what the difference between wet food and kibble is beyond the obvious. Whether dogs should be showered and cleaned. How often they should see a vet or a Healer. Harry doesn’t have a clue - but that evening, Draco settles on calling her Bonnie and his cheeks flush a pleased pink the first time he manages to coax her into sniffing his fingers.

So Bonnie doesn’t leave for the Auror Office the next morning, or Draco’s side for a long time.


	3. love at first sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mercia and Tiger's June Prompts Challenge #5: Love at First Sight  
> AKA where Draco is totally a romantic at heart but in denial

Love at first sight - it was the sort of notion that Draco admired. In his firm opinion, it took a very strange sort of mindset to even believe in such a thing in this day and age. It was true - he thought - that people could certainly find lust at first sight. Most relationships started like that - on the basis of how hot the person was, or how much you fancied them. Love - the non-platonic sort anyways -  was a lot more complicated.

He liked to think he knew what it was. The quiet contentment that his parents luxuriated every time he visited them in France, the youthful plastic and political smiles that made them a very handsome couple during his childhood, replaced by wrinkled lines and soft gestures. He liked to think he saw glimpses of it, little windows into other people's lives and their intertwined hearts. It was in the way Pansy and Astoria would burst into laughter, overexuberant and almost hysterical, until it should have made them nearly sick with it but instead beaming from ear to ear so hard it seemed like they'd caught the stars between their eyes. Sometimes, he saw it in strangers too - the way an elderly woman held open the door for the older gentleman behind her, fingers flicking through sign language fast and a teasing glint in her eyes; or the face someone made when stepping out of a flower shop - somewhere between proud and bashful.

But it wasn't something he could say he had experienced for himself.

He'd had plenty of his share of partners, of course. Draco knew he sometimes came off a little too strongly, but he liked to think that his personality and his looks weren't not attractive. He was twenty-five, in the prime of his life, why shouldn't he have his pick? Of the four serious relationships he'd been in, none of them had made him look at them the way he'd seen other people look at their significant others. Not a single one. After the initial flutter of novelty, the routine would sink in and then suddenly Draco would find himself glancing across the table on a date and thinking - was this better than nothing?

His job as a photographer meant he had to travel a lot - and thus, was usually his go-to excuse for a break-up. "I'm sorry - this long distance thing isn't working - we should just - " was his typical spiel and his mother seemed to think he'd gotten it down to an art. It wasn't that they were bad relationships, or shitty partners, just that he wanted something special - as cliché as that sounded. He didn't want to just settle for who he could get.

"Oh, and what do you think I did?" His mother would say primly over the phone, her tone light and airy, "I settled for your father, you know, and now I have a wonderful son, and a loving husband - you've grown up so much, that I forget what a child you are sometimes, Draco."

So perhaps, he had no idea what love was after all.

But it was something of a personal project of his to capture it in a frame. How did a slight smile differ from a look of love? What changed between shaping an expression on your face to looking at someone with love? He had thousands of snapshots in his studio of the faces of his friends that he'd bribed into being used as subjects on film, or black and white stills of people going around their everyday lives, whilst Draco tried to understand their expressions, just a little.

Despite all of that, he'd yet to actually capture the cliché 'love at first sight' - ironic, since that was the theme the fashion mag was going for in their May issue. They'd been flown out from London to Los Angeles and driven to the shoot location the next morning with little preamble in order to set up before the models arrived. The weather was far too hot for anything Draco would deem Spring, but at least the urban sets meant air conditioning. As usual, he'd brought Pansy with him to manage and assist - her official title was as his P.A. but that had somehow devolved into meaning he was responsible for giving her feedback on her selfies and getting updated on the gossip that he missed while focusing through the lens.

The shoot had run overtime, lasting several hours because the models just wouldn't move their face right for a theme like love at first sight and Draco was hot, and irritated, and wasn't nearly as recovered from his jetlag as he'd liked, which was why he flop down beside his unprofessional P.A on the sofa in their trailer with a grunt and tried to do his best to imagine something cold and sweet right about now.

"Ooh! Food's ready," Pansy's voice was annoyingly cheerful, "I can hear the caterers setting up."

"Not hungry," He mumbled into the cushions, macramé threading tickling his nose. "Lemme sleep."

"Draco."

"Nuh."

"Draco."

He closed his eyes.

"Fine - I'm starving, so I'm going." She said pointedly, before the clicks of her heels got quieter, followed by the sounds of the door.

There was another shoot after this, swapping the idyllic urban street they were in for an office shoot with chrome and metal finishes and glass several hundred metres above the busy streets. The six models (six now, because he told the seventh to go home) would be modelling an outfit each, and he'd need enough full body and close-ups to keep the stills intimate enough for the theme but also show off each garment.

Then after that, there was the reviewing process - he'd need to get the photos sent to the editor's office before eleven tonight and to do that, he'd need to go over the hundreds of frames on the memory card, and -

A loud knock interrupted his thoughts, plans vanishing in his head like smoke. Draco scowled, trying to find the tail end of the idea - right, the memory card and then the -

The knock repeated itself louder this time, and he'd just opened his mouth to tell Pansy to fuck off when the door opened of it's own accord and a distinctly not-Pansy stepped through with a fierce scowl on his lips. The man didn't even look up, breaking left away from the door to set down a tray with little finesse and not at all gently, the soup inside the bowl sloshing dangerously near the edges. He had dark hair, black and thick, glossy and messy like it would catch between his fingers at the slightest tugs. Framed by a pair of rounded glasses, were bright green eyes that were bracketed by a smattering of barely-there freckles on the man's dark skin.

He wasn't a model - he didn't have the build for it, lean though he was and well-muscled from what Draco could see under the white caterer's uniform that clung to him slightly  in the heat. The man - because he was definitely a _man_ \- bared a flash of white teeth between rosy-pink lips, mumbling things that Draco probably wasn't supposed to hear.

"Stupid Garcia, send your fucking sous chef on your fucking errand, why don't you?" The man hissed to himself, in an English accent, strangely; laying out the silverware into the tray. "Fucking celebrities, why do you need a fork for fucking bisque?" There was a clatter and a sigh as the man - sous chef, hot sous chef - finished up and made to turn, and abruptly Draco realised he was about to be caught staring at the man, having overheard opinion's he was most likely not supposed to -

"Motherfucker!" The man spat, broad shoulders jerking in shock as Draco finally got a chance to see the nametag on his breast pocket.

_Harry._

Quite a shame his mouth wasn't as sweet as it looked. Maybe it could have been - not love, no, - but something like it. A warm, heady feeling uncurled in Draco's chest.

"No thank you, not my type," He said, arching one brow as the caterer's cheeks flushed.  _But you are._


End file.
